HAZING SHOULD HAVE DOOMED FITZGERALD — MICHIGAN STATE HIRED HIM ANYWAY
Lane Kiffin’s craziness is nothing compared to Fitzgerald, who was fired at Northwestern after allowing players — he claims he didn’t know — to simulate sex and force Black athletes to eat watermelon
J Batt is the athletic director at Michigan State. He was named Jason and shortened it after sharing an elementary-school class with two other Jasons. J reads media material and realizes he’s making a coaching hire far more controversial than all things Lane Kiffin.
He is hiring Pat Fitzgerald, who says he wasn’t aware that Northwestern’s players were running a hazing “carwash.” He was the head coach and claimed not to know that older players wore masks and liked to dry-hump younger players — simulating sex — in a dark locker room. Black players were forced to eat watermelon. Fitzgerald was fired two years ago by school president Michael Schill after the student paper, the Daily Northwestern, broke the story.
“A former Northwestern football player told The Daily some of the hazing conduct investigated by the university involved coerced sexual acts. A second player confirmed these details,” the Daily reported. “The player also told The Daily that head coach Pat Fitzgerald may have known that hazing took place,” with the same player saying, “I’ve seen it with my own eyes, and it’s just absolutely egregious and vile and inhumane behavior.”
No fewer than 11 players acknowledged the hazing, which allegedly included “forced participation, nudity and sexualized acts of a degrading nature.” What is the uglier crime in the big office? Fitzgerald lying about hazing … or not even knowing? Either way, his career seemed doomed as a team leader in major college football, even after he sued the school for $130 million and reached a settlement.
“Widespread and certainly not a secret,” Schill said of the hazing before he resigned in September.
Enter Batt, who must be batty. The hire is crazier than Kiffin trying to stay at Ole Miss for the College Football Playoff after taking a job at LSU. Suddenly, Fitzgerald is forgiven for a sin at a university that should have known better. Michigan State allowed Larry Nasser to sexually abuse hundreds of female athletes, then watched Mel Tucker violate a sexual misconduct policy as football coach. You name the broken law. Michigan State is guilty.
Now, Batt must explain if Fitzgerald was protecting his players against humiliation, rather than calling them out for vicious wrongdoing. If he didn’t know, what was he doing in life? Is he ready to carry on and inherit the messiness at Michigan State, which has been dominated by Michigan and has whiffed in two hires — including Jonathan Smith — after Mark Dantonio retired. Fitzgerald wasn’t exposed to serious pressure in Evanston. If the Spartans keep losing, he’ll be fired.
“Fully vindicated,” Fitzgerald said on ESPN last month. “I’m well rested, no bags under the eyes and ready to put the whistle around my neck and put the neck roll back on and (go) win some championships.”
What has he learned about hazing? We don’t know. “I know how to build a program,” he said. “I know how to run a program. We know how to compete for championships and graduate guys and develop guys to be prepared for life. Am I disappointed in some things that happened (at Northwestern)? Absolutely. I’m going to use that as fuel as we move forward and do a better job as a leader.”
He was granted breaks at NU, where he starred as a linebacker in the Rose Bowl era. How did he finish 110-101 in 17 seasons at a school that dive-bombed in football? Just so he knows, finishing nine games over .500 will lead to another firing. How does he recruit against Michigan, where Sherrone Moore landed quarterback Bryce Underwood with the NIL aid of software billionaire Larry Ellison?
“The 2025 football season has not lived up to our shared standards for Michigan State Football,” J Batt said. “While that does not fall solely on Jonathan Smith, it’s become necessary to make a coaching change in order to chart a new direction for the program.”
This could be a dead-end job for Pat Fitzgerald.
It’s what he deserves.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.